Events on this day

Commander file

U-boat of the Day

U-boat Finder

SC-100

Sydney CB to UK (North Atlantic)

18 Sep 1942 - 25 Sep 1942

The Convoy

24 ships

First sighting

On 18 Sep 1942 by U-599

Escorts

The American escort group A3 ( Cdr Heineman) consisting of the cutters Campbell and Spencer and the Canadian corvettes Weyburn, Lunenburg, Bittersweet, Mayflower, Rosthern, Trillium and Dauphin, and the British corvette Nasturtium.

Some of the escorts are just temporarily attached, as they are on their way to Operation Torch, the landing operation in North-Afrika.

The B-Service is able to decode a course instruction concerning convoy SC-100. The gruppe Lohs is deployed accordingly and the convoy is detected on the 18th. The contact keeping U-boat is however immediately shaken off by evasive movement and the U-boats cannot attack in the night.

A gale prevents the following day the U-boats to attack and makes it difficult to approach, but also some merchant ships have trouble to keep up with the convoy. After the failure of the boats of gruppe Lohs to re-establish contact in the previous night, the gruppe Pfeil is now also thrown into the pursuit.

On the 20 the U-596 and U-373 make contact and have misses on escorts, but U-596 manages to sink one ship from the convoy. The weather is deteriorating rapidly and makes further attacks impossible. The operation is temporarily broken off on the 22th, when convoy RB-1 is sighted by gruppe Vorwärts and the favourably positioned boats leave for that convoy.

Some boats continue the operation and in the night of the 22th U-617 sinks one ship from the convoy. There are a lot of merchants who have fallen behind of the convoy in the bad weather. U-617 sinks two and U-432 one straggler. Further attacks from U-221, U-258 and U-755 have no success and the operation is finally broken off on the 25th.